Healthcare Underutilization

Healthcare Underutilization
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Healthcare Underutilization
Even though healthcare has been identified as one of the most improved departments in the states, underutilization is still a major concern to some states and individuals. Underutilization refers to minimal usage of the health services below the required standards. This is opposite to healthcare utilization which is the optimum use of health services for better health life. This discussion will focus on reasons why underutilization of healthcare services is a major concern for now and the future and how it can be improved to 20 years from now.
As discussed by Chew-Graham and others (2016), medical services have greatly improved over the years in the states. New medicines, modern healthcare centers, and highly trained medical professions have greatly improved healthcare and seems to improve more 20 years from now. Medical technology has taken a step forward, use of different viral prescriptions to treat HIV/AIDS, use of chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer and high-tech machines in scanning and imaging. The improvement of these services does not mean healthcare is equally available to everyone, the majority have but a significant portion of the general population still lacks access to essential medical services. Health care utilization is determined by whether people know health services offered, the services they need, if they can access it and whether the health unit can offer the services. People may underutilize health services because of less awareness.
Accessibility to the services is one of the reasons as identified by Rasmussen & Jamieson (2015). People with health problems may not be able to utilize health services if not available in their area. Remote areas are the most affected by this factor, which has fewer health care centers per unit area. Even though health units have largely increased in number, they are being faced with challenges such as the inadequate supply of specialty physicians and medical supplies. For example, mental physicians are a big challenge in remote hospitals, most mental patients are referred to city hospitals which is a big challenge during emergencies. Some patients do not own cars, and using public transport might not be easily available or slow. Therefore, when the national and state government budgets to build health units the remote areas should be considered to improve accessibility to those living miles away from urban centers.
Second reason is ability to pay for the services. In the states, affordability to pay for health services is tied to personal health insurance coverage. Health insurance has been an issue especially to low-income earners, high-income earners can be better off but are challenged on how to quickly access it during emergencies. On the list of high-income countries, America ranks last on access to care. Having healthcare insurance does not mean you are done with medical bills, some have medical insurance but still complain of medical bills. This is because may not have insured some services because of cost. A study by (Bauer et al., 2017), shows that a third of low-income earners are not health insured due to the unaffordability of medicals costs when deducte...